OK, you know I get a little uncomfortable with messy crafts and this one definitely has the potential to get messy. But with a few moments of planning, you can definitely keep the mess under control. The most important thing here is to choose an area that’s easy to clean. It’s easiest to do this craft outside on the grass or on the driveway. You can definitely make these art pieces indoors if you lay down a (large) area of newsprint or brown craft paper to protect the floor or table. The best part about the craft paper is that all you have to do is fold it up when you’re done and the mess is gone! I still have HUGE sheets of white paper leftover from my engineering drafting days, so that’s what we used in the craft below. So if you’re questioning my sanity about why there’s a white background in the photos, rest assured there’s at least 2 layers of white paper protecting my table! 🙂
I found our spray bottles at the dollar store in the cosmetic section and they are so much fun to paint with! So much better than making splatters with a paint brush! The bottles are pretty small and hold less than 1 cup of liquid in them – I’d try to avoid the larger spray bottles meant for houseplants or cleaning. You’ll end up wasting a lot of paint trying to fill up the bigger bottles. I also STRONGLY recommend using washable tempera paint. We started by using acrylic paint (which is what you’ll see in the photos and video below). Admittedly that was a momentary lapse in judgement which sent my blood pressure a little higher than it needed to be! haha You can usually find washable paint at the dollar store. You can feel free to use my free printable bat template to make your bat shapes, or you can create your own shapes. You can also try this craft with pumpkins, spiders, black cats, or any other fun shapes!
Check out our video for how to make Splatter Paint Bat Artwork:
Looking for even more Halloween craft ideas?? Here are some of our favourites: Coffee Filter Bats Paper Roll Ghost Wooden Spoon Bat Craft Chalk Stenciled Pumpkins
How to make Splatter Paint Bat Artwork:
Construction Paper Thick Card Stock or an empty cereal box Washable Tempera Paints Spray Bottles Water Free Printable Bat Template
Pour a generous amount of washable tempera paint into your bottle.
We poured about a half a cup of water into our bottles to dilute the paint so it wouldn’t clog the nozzle. But it will depend on the size of your bottle and the amount of paint you’ve added. Start with a small amount of water, give it a good shake to mix the two together, and keep adding more water until it comes out of the nozzle nicely. Once the paint comes out of the nozzle, you’ll also need to do a few test sprays to adjust the nozzle opening until you get a good splatter texture.
We used black construction paper and cut our bat templates onto white card stock. But I would actually recommend tracing your templates onto thicker cardboard, like a cereal box. When we sprayed our card stock templates, the edges curled a little bit which made it a lot harder to get a clean silhouette.
Go ahead and start spraying! Do your best to get paint around the entire bat shape. The further away you have the spray bottle, and the lighter the paint splatters are, the better your silhouette will turn out. For the best silhouette, have the paper on the ground, stand over top of it and spray the bottle downwards. If you spray the paint too close to the paper the paint will seep underneath the template.
Add a second or third colour for more contrast and dimension!
Once you’re happy with your painting, let it sit for about 30 minutes before removing the bat template. It will turn out so much better if the paint has started to dry a bit! Then grab a corner of the template and carefully lift off your bat template to reveal the silhouette underneath.
The area that was covered by the template has a negative space silhouette of your bat! SO COOL!
The paint splatters create such a cool border around the outside!
Just like bats flying in the night sky with the stars behind them!
There are small, medium and large bat shapes you can choose from in the printable template. Mix and match the sizes in your paintings! I love easy art work. Especially easy art work where you get to try a new technique, like spray bottle splatter painting. Such a fun way to make Halloween art!
This splatter paint bat artwork is SO FUN to make! Using dollar store spray bottles and washable paint you can quickly make really awesome silhouette artwork of bats in the night sky! This is such a fun craft for kids and a great Halloween project! Such a fun way to learn about negative space at home or in the classroom.
For even MORE Halloween craft ideas check out:
Coffee Filter Bats Paper Roll Ghost Halloween Paper Garland Cutouts
Flapping Bat Craft
Chalk Stenciled Pumpkins
For more fun craft ideas, check out our book Low-Mess Crafts for Kids for 72 fun and simple craft ideas for kids! The projects are fun, easy and most importantly low-mess, so the clean up is simple!
Where to buy:
